Epiphany pays dividends for Magpie Mike
HERE’S a sentence that hasn’t been written very often in recent years: Newcastle United have got their transfer policy exactly right!
They’ve paid realistic prices for players suited to a Championship promotion campaign and unloaded those who felt they were too good to slum it outside the Premier League or were treading water on huge pay packets.
As a result, the Magpies are heading straight back to the top flight and the fans have almost forgotten they hate Mike Ashley.
During Ashley’s nine years as owner, the club’s supporters have grown to distrust him deeply.
They didn’t like the way he brought in what they viewed as a “Cockney Mafia” to run the club, the way he appointed unpopular managers, the way he seemed to treat St James’ Park like another branch of Sports Direct.
But, most of all, they didn’t like the way he did his transfer business.
His strategy was driven by the desire to make profit. If they could buy from France for £5m and sell on for £25m – perfect.
The only requirement of the manager was to make sure they stayed in the Premier League.
But relegation last season seems to have been some kind of epiphany for Ashley. He’s changed.
First, he made sure that Rafa Benitez stayed as manager and that wouldn’t have been a cheap option.
The Spaniard knows his worth and he’ll have taken some persuading to work in the Championship.
Once he was on board, Ashley needed to allow Benitez to assemble a squad that suited the task ahead. He may never have managed at that level but he’s been in England long enough to have seen what it takes.
He needed players with a specific skill set – hunger, hard work, no ego, lower league experience.
Some of them would have little sell-on value but that wouldn’t matter. They were bought with a single purpose.
So in came Matt Ritchie from Bournemouth, Dwight Gayle (Crystal Palace), Grant Hanley (Blackburn), Mo Diame (Hull), Ciaran Clark (Aston Villa) and Daryl Murphy (Ipswich).
Out went Georginio Wijnaldum, Andros Townsend, Fabricio Coloccini, Daryl Janmaat, Papiss Cisse, Steven Taylor and Remy Cabella.
An hour from the closure of the transfer window they’d spent £55m and received £55m. Then Moussa Sissoko went to Spurs and Newcastle pocketed another £30m.
The result is they top the table. In midweek they progressed to the quarter-finals of the EFL Cup. They’re still getting 50,000 at home games.
It may “only” be the Championship but winning is winning. The fans have already seen more victories this season than in the whole of last and they feel good.
About time, too.